From 1989 through 1997 Jimboy's Tacos was my client through Jimboy's Marketing. I did more radio spots for them than for any other client that I have had. To my surprise, I really liked writing and producing radio spots. You can create any kind of world and go to any location that you can dream up. I used all of the major recording studios in Sacramento at one time or another to record and produce the spots. Many of them were in radio stations, many of which don't even exist anymore.

One of the practices that I instituted with Jimboy's was buying their radio time one quarter ahead, which means that in February (the middle of the first quarter), I would buy all their radio time for the second quarter (April, May and June). Buying air time is like buying airline tickets - the closer you get to the date the flight takes off, the more expensive the price. The exception might be if a major buy fell through and then a station might call and offer "fire sale" pricing on spots, but this was unusual. The Account Executives who were assigned to me knew to contact me about those as well, sometimes they were great buys, but we did not need to rely on them.

One example of how buying ahead can become especially valuable is the time I bought the major talk radio station in Sacramento as part of one of the buys. As the date for the flight came closer, it became apparent that the O. J. Simpson trial was going to come to a conclusion and a verdict was imminent. I got calls offering me airtime at very high prices because the station knew that everyone would be listening to them to hear the verdict. Since I had already bought time with them I didn't need or want to do that. I had the time at a fraction of the cost of buying later. Our spots were running the week and the day of the verdict. A fantastic deal as far as audience numbers was concerned.

In 1997 I was living on the Navajo Indian Reservation (Navajo Nation) and decided that it was time to start focusing on my own creative projects, so I finished the last quarter buy and then resigned the account, giving them several months to find an Advertising Agency to replace me. I liked doing their spots and buying their airtime. From time to time I will post some of those past spots here.

You can listen to this spot that we called "Summer Camp." I was the only voice, which was very rare, usually I used hired voiceover actors, but I had this idea and knew exactly what I wanted. When I was 10 - 12, or somewhere in that age bracket I went to a great YMCA summer camp called Lake Alpine, in the Sierra Nevadas in Northern California. It had little cabins deep in the mountain forest and we also took overnight hikes. There were always stories about "Big Foot" or Sasquatch. You can find various sites that still claim that they are real, and maybe they are. I just never saw one. I wonder if I can still make my voice sound like that. The engineer and I had a lot of fun getting this one done -

Here's another very early spot, September 1989, named Fiesta Dinner Special. John Cory and Phyllis did a series of spots for us. This one, as usual, is telling a story and it also plays on the famous, Jimboy, Oh Boy! theme that has recurred through their ads over the years.